3 graphical clients for managing the Uncomplicated FireWall

ufw, the Uncomplicated FireWall, is Ubuntu’s user-friendly, command line frontend to IPTables, the command line utility for managing Netfilter, the firewall application built into the Linux kernel. It is installed not just on Ubuntu, but also on all Ubuntu-based distributions. As simple to use as ufw is, a graphical interface is even better, especially for new users.

This article, presents the three graphical interfaces for and managing ufw that I am aware of. If you know another that is not listed here, tell us about it. Note that this is not a tutorial on how to configure them, just a listing.

So, here they are, in alphabetical order:

Gufw – This is the graphical client available on Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based distributions.This is Gufw’s interface in its enabled state.

The Simple tab allows you to create rules with a port number defined. This makes it possible to create rules for services and applications not preset in the Preconfigured tab.

KDE Control Module-ufw – This is the K Desktop Environment’s firewall control module and it is typically installed on non-Ubuntu, (KDE) distributions.

The main window. The tooltip shows the outgoing policy options.

And this is the same window showing the logging levels.

The default rule adding window presents an interface for adding very general rules. It is the simple rule adding interface.

This is advanced window for adding rules. It makes it easy to add more specific rules. Stay tuned for a step-by-step guide on how to configure this graphical interface to ufw.

ufw-Frontends – This is a PyGTK and PyQt interface to ufw. It is written and maintained by Darwin Bautista and it is the graphical firewall client installed on Sabayon 6 GNOME. This screenshot is the main window.

There is no simple or advanced rule adding window on ufw-Frontends, just a rule adding window. It provides all the options needed to add general or very specific rules. Stay tuned for a step-by-step guide on how to configure this graphical interface to ufw.

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I have been using Firestarter actively on my Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10 systems, and it works great. Firestarter also works in 11.04 as well, but a little work has to be done to enable Firestarter to successfully write messages to log files.

AFAIK, Firestarter was in active development at least 4 years before somebody came up with the idea of creating a Linux distribution called Ubuntu. And ufw is a recent addition to Ubuntu. I think it was in Ubuntu 8.04 (2008) that ufw made its debut.

So, unless Firestarter’s developers changed its codebase to that of ufw after 2008, my response to your comment is, nyet.

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Author works on AI safety as a Senior Research Scientist at Uber AI Labs.

An invitation from Anastasia Marchenkova

Hya, after stints as a quantum researcher at Georgia Tech Quantum Optics & Quantum Telecom Lab, and the University of Maryland Joint Quantum Institute, I’m now working on superconducting qubit quantum processors at Bleximo. I’ll be speaking during Algorithm Conference in Austin, Texas, July 16 – 18, 2020. Meet me there and let’s chat about progress and hype in quantum computing.